Chapter 2 book of numbers

September 1991 Brielle Bill, NJ.Legg's life changed on this day.In a crumbling bar, a fisherman sat next to Legg and said that he had discovered a secret at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, and promised to tell Legg the way to find the secret.The fisherman agreed to meet Legge the next day at the pier where his boat lay.Laige's ship is named "Explorer", and Laige often takes it out to sea to explore all the possibilities of adventure.But when the appointed time came, the fisherman did not show up.Legge paced back and forth, taking care not to sink into the rotting planks of the pier.Having spent most of his life on the Atlantic Ocean, he knew when a change would shock the world.This change usually occurs before a storm or when a manned ship sinks.Today, however, when the fisherman handed him the scroll filled with numbers about the mystery of the wreck, he knew something important was about to happen.Raig looked into the distance, looking for the fisherman.But nothing.The salty sea breeze blew across the seaside town of Brielle, tilted the boats docked by the pier, and brought the boundless Atlantic Ocean into Leger's eyes.When the morning mist cleared, he looked again.This time he finally saw the fisherman, who was walking towards him with a note in his hand.The fisherman looked very sad.He, like Legge, had lived at sea, and he knew when his life changed.

The quietly approaching autumn will blow away the prosperity of Brielle, and show the real Brielle naked in front of people.This seaside town in central New Jersey is home to captains and fishermen, is full of convenience stores serving the neighborhood, and a fifth grader can repair a dredger. The Explorer was docked at Brielle's pier, its tall hull towering over the other ships.But it’s not just its 65-foot length that catches the eye, it’s the way it feels docked—in its weathered wooden hull and notched propellers.Legg built the Explorer with the sole purpose of taking divers to explore some of the most dangerous shipwrecks in the Atlantic.

Legg, 40, is a thin, dark-skinned former salesman.He was wearing a battered T-shirt, cheap sandals and a bottle of Gim Beam that he never left.No one would have guessed that he was also an unusual figure back then. At twenty, Legge was already well-known among wreck divers.At that time, deep-sea wreck diving was only the province of adventurers.The bottom of the Atlantic Ocean is full of countless undiscovered shipwrecks, even those famous ships in the legend.And searching for these shipwrecks—for their bent metal and their lost history—became Legg's original dream. Wreck divers in the Atlantic never mind finding treasure.There were no Spanish shipwrecks full of gold and silver coins in this area, and if there were, Legg would not be interested.He lives near the New York and New Jersey waterways, which are regularly used by cargo ships, ocean liners, passenger ships and warships engaged in commercial activities and the maintenance of the United States.Divers occasionally find rare pieces of china or jewelry in such wrecks, but divers like Legg are interested in something else entirely.They can see the moment of solidified hope of a nation, the fleeting thoughts of the captain at the dying moment, and even the hope for the future held by the children in distress on the damaged hull of the sunken ship. What historians don't understand.They experience the true meaning of life side by side with these bones buried in the deep sea.

Their dives are still adventure after adventure.The vast majority of sunken ships have never been explored since they sank, and they are likely to be forgotten by the world and gradually die under the erosion of sea water.The outside world is changing, but the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean is always barren, only the sunken ship is constantly calling for the arrival of divers. Diving wasn't easy in Legge's day. 1943 Jacques.Kusteo invented the gas cylinder and breathing regulator, a set of diving equipment that made underwater breathing possible, but there was not much development of diving equipment until the 1970s and 1980s.Most diving organizations limit amateur divers to depths of up to 130 feet, but even at those depths, a minor mishap with diving equipment can kill the most skilled diver.To find the most challenging wrecks, Legg and other elite divers often dive to depths of 200 feet or more.While they prayed for the power of God to allow them to "survival after disaster", they also hoped that their bodies could withstand various dangerous tests.But the wrecks that intrigued Legge were often at depths no one could reach.

Even if Legg's diving equipment and physical fitness allow him to survive in the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, he will still encounter other dangers, each of which is deadly.At that time, diving was a brand new sport for them, and there was no long-term accumulated experience passed down from generation to generation to help divers save their lives in dangerous moments.Legg can only rely on the word-of-mouth diving stories, the occasional experience imparted by others while drinking, and the knowledge taught in magazines and training courses to challenge the extreme depth of the seabed.If Legg himself had been in an extremely dangerous situation—the kind that often happens in deep-sea shipwrecks—then next time he might pass on his first-hand experience to others.Every time he or other good divers survived an expedition, many magazines would write about their heroic adventures.

Legge challenges the deeper seabed.He dived to depths of more than 200 feet, depths never reached by amateur divers, and many scientists secretly marveled at his abilities.When he surveyed wrecks at this depth, he was usually the first to see the wreck since it sank, to open the purser's safe, and to see the bones of the martyrs who died at sea.However, this also means that Legge relies entirely on his own intuition and experience to complete these diving adventures.He has no maps drawn by previous divers.If anyone had ever explored these wrecks before, he would have told Legg: "Don't touch the beam on the outside of the galley - it was shaking when I swam over, and if you touched it the whole cabin might collapse bury you in it."Legge had to discover these conditions himself.But there is one danger, which wreck divers can certainly expect, when slipping through the twisting, fractured passageways of a wreck, each compartment can be a trap filled with silt swirls, ready to collapse at any moment.

In Legge's time, the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean was still barren, and explorers needed to have the same firm will as the pioneers of the American West.The perilous experience of a shipwreck under the sea only strengthens the divers, but never weakens their determination to dive and explore.It was not uncommon for early divers like Legg to be in distress while diving under the sea.The sport gradually weeded out amateurs and tourists, and what remained was a group of very good divers.They admire power and have strong desires.Even if they were suffocated due to lack of oxygen due to shortness of breath, they would swing the sledgehammer to smash the portholes of the sunken ship.The rule underwater is that the weak prey on the strong. Many divers even forcibly snatch the wreck relics found by other divers and take them as their own.Fighting seems to be the best way to settle disputes, whether on a boat or underwater.Items found on wrecks are always regarded as precious by divers as newborn babies, and they may sometimes even fight for it.In this sense, early deep-sea wreck divers practiced the pirate style.

But Legg was different from them.In the era when the sport was still advocating strength, Legg used his brain.He consulted a large number of academic articles, reference materials, novels and blueprints, he studied all the materials he got from the sunken ship, and his knowledge of the sunken ship deepened, just as he himself stood on the dock decades ago and worked with the shipbuilders. Like those ancient ships.He can identify the various parts of the ship, and he can even feel the life of the ship from the way the hull parts are connected.This insight often gave Legg two hallucinations: he seemed to be able to see the scene of the birth of the ship, and the scene of the death of the ship at the same time.To the average diver, the bent steel pipes and broken planks seen on wrecks are useless junk where what they consider useful is usually buried.Like puppies, they rummaged through the junk, hoping to find a morsel of food.But when Legge saw the same scene, he would repair the broken hull in his mind and reproduce the spectacular image of the ship in his mind.One of his major finds was a copper whistle from the paddlewheel "Champion".The whistle was once placed high on the mast of the "Champion".The siren is very conspicuous, but on the sea floor it looks like a worthless old pipe.Lyger was among the wrecks, using his insight to imagine what the Champion would have been like when it sank.He was well versed in the anatomy of ships, and when he pictured the ship breaking apart, he seemed to see the siren plummeting downward until it landed where it had been found.When Legg discovered the two rudders of the British tanker "Coimbra" on the same day (it is very rare to find one rudder at a time), his photo was with Lloyd.A picture of Bridges hangs in the wheelhouse of the most famous dive charter boat of the time, the Sea Predator, when he was just 25 years old.

For Legg, the value of objects from shipwrecks, like the copper sirens, is not in aesthetics or money, but in their symbolism.Many people wonder why a grown-up would treasure these teacups and saucers so much and display them in ornate display cases.But to divers like Legg, these seemingly insignificant items represent the essence of adventure.Therefore, a telegraph display in a diver's living room is more meaningful than a beautiful decoration.It is a statement, and it tells everyone: No one has ever been to this wreck before me, otherwise this telegraph would not have been left there.

Afterwards, driven by instinct, Legge began to survey the "Andrea Dorian" in the sunken ship.The Italian luxury liner collided with the Swedish liner Stockholm in fog while leaving Nantucket in 1956. 1,659 people were rescued before the ship sank, but 51 died. The Dorian sank 250 feet to the bottom of the sea.But the "Dorian" was not Legg's patent.Its sinking site is well known and has been explored by numerous divers since its sinking.But the Dorian has always called out good wreck divers.Years later, the ship is still filled with objects of the time: fine china tableware with the Italian ship's emblem, silverware, trunks, pottery by renowned artists, pewter pastry dishes and jewellery.In Legge's day, and even now, the only concern a diver on an expedition to the Dorian had to worry about was whether he would be strong enough to bring home what he found on board.

But the items on the "Dorian" are not the only purpose of Leger's pursuit. The true meaning of the Dorian to him lay in its exploration value. The Dorian lay on its side on the ocean floor, making exploration dangerous and unpredictable.Divers must consider the direction in which the hull is sinking.In this case, the wreck's hatch is facing the ground, while the ceiling is on the right-hand side.At the same time, it sank in very deep waters, the shallowest part was 180 feet above the sea surface, and the deepest part had reached a depth of 250 feet.It is common for divers to die under the sea due to disorientation, asphyxiation due to lack of oxygen, or unconsciousness on the "Dorian".The wreck is located in the dark and dangerous depths of the sea, and the entire deck has not been surveyed for decades.And surveying the deck of the "Dorian" was Legge's purpose. Legg made his way through the dangerous hull many times.The mantel in his home has been turned into a miniature museum of the Dorian.Soon, he turned his attention to the ship's bell.The ship bell is the symbol of a ship and the sound of the ship.To a diver, few things are more valuable than a ship's bell.Many famous divers never found a ship's bell in their lives.Legg made up his mind to find the ship's bell of the "Dorian".Everyone thinks that he is a little crazy, because countless divers have searched for the ship bell of the "Dorian" in the past 30 years, but they have found nothing.So everyone thinks that the ship's bell of the "Dorian" is not at the place where the ship sank. Legge set out to find a job.He pored over deck plans, photographs and crew diaries.Then he did what no other diver had done: developed a plan.Executing this plan can take days or even a week.But no captain is willing to rent the boat to divers for a week, and spend the time investigating the "Dorian".So Legg decided to use the considerable savings he had saved from his former salesman days to buy a boat.He bought the ship for only one purpose: to salvage the ship's bell of the "Dorian". That ship was the original Explorer, an offshore vessel built in New Jersey. In 1985, Legg recruited five top divers who shared his passion for exploring the Dorian.He made the following arrangements: he bears all the expenses of transporting the divers to the sinking site of the "Dorian", but there is only one purpose of this trip - to find the ship bell of the "Dorian". For the first few days, divers followed Legge's plan exactly, but found nothing.The ship's bell wasn't there at all.Under these circumstances, even the most persistent diver might give up.One day in a 65-foot ship in the Atlantic Ocean is enough to make people's stomachs turn, not to mention that Legg and his teammates have spent four full days on the 35-foot-long "Explorer".But when you have sorted out the whole situation, you will not give up easily.Legge abandoned his search for the bow and focused on the stern.It was a first for them, no one had ever surveyed the stern before.They saw the Dorian as a whole, living organism, not a cracked, 20-foot pile of scrap wood and steel.Legg and his companions set out to resume their search in seemingly impossible places. On the 15th day, they finally had good luck-the ship bell of the "Dorian" was found.They attached slings to the ship's bell, knocked out the pins on the bell, and hoisted it out of the water in lifting bags.The moment they saw the ship's bell, Raig and his companions cheered.According to the previous agreement, half of the ship's bell belonged to Legg, and the other half belonged to the remaining five people.The last of them all will have the ownership of the entire ship's bell.Legg placed the 150-pound ship's bell on the back of his wife's van for her to pull home.But when she got home, she found that the ship's bell was missing.She called Legge: "I don't know where the ship's bell is!" Legge nearly had a heart attack.He immediately called the Highway Patrol and asked them, "Has anyone found a big clock somewhere?" In fact, someone did find a ship's clock and reported it to the police: "I don't know what this thing I found , but it looks like a big clock with 'Andrea Dorian' written on it." Hearing this news, Legge was so excited that he almost fainted.He retrieved the ship's bell and insured it for $100,000.Legg was truly extraordinary. Soon, a new idea sprouted in Legge's mind.Why not use the Explorer as a diver-only charter boat?This way he can earn enough money to fulfill his hobbies one by one. "I want to make this sport my life's work," he told friends.Every year he goes to the "Dorian" five or six times, and then spends his free time surveying the famous ships that sank on the bottom of the sea decades ago, including the "Carolina", "Tex", "Nano Nice" and "Pan Pennsylvania".His wife and two children lived in Pennsylvania, and he lived alone in Brielle, where he dated other women and lived the life of a bachelor.But his wife has always hoped that one day he will be able to go back and live with them.She taught the children to adore their father so that there was hope of getting Raig back to them.Legg commissioned the shipyard to build a second Explorer, a ship nearly twice as long as the first, complete with all the equipment needed to transport divers to those famous wrecks that required a pioneering spirit nearby. But soon Legg's business suffered a setback.The reason is not that there are no customers, but that Legg cannot obey customers.This is a big taboo in the charter business.During the diving trip, the captain's main job is to chat with customers.These customers who work all day for their livelihood can only have time to go diving in the evening or on weekends. All they need is to be able to relax in the sea.But Legg thinks his business should be tied to perilous exploration of deep-sea wrecks, like the Dorian and Joapa surveys.However, his customers only want to go to some non-dangerous, offshore wrecks, such as the "Stolt Dagali", "Mohawk" and "Toulton".To Legg, these people aren't real divers, they're just tourists.Watching them in their brand new orange-green fins—oh, orange-green—and listening to their superficial plans—taking pictures of lobsters or touching the sides of “real” shipwrecks—he couldn't hide his disdain for them.He was in the business for adventure, but now he has to make ends meet from unadventurous customers. Legg started drinking heavily.The gin he loves doesn't like those customers any more than he does.It wasn't long before Legge became increasingly rough with customers.He often stood arrogantly outside the wheelhouse and commented on customers, often making customers dumbfounded and at a loss.He yelled, "You're not diving at all!" "Look at you laymen! Go to the Caribbean with your green fins!" "Those guys are selling junk equipment to you idiots, what a bunch Liar!" At the end of each voyage, he would get very drunk and yell, "Get off my boat, you bastards!" Friends and crew pleaded with Legge, "Bill, for God's sake! Come on, don't talk to customers this way, they paid and we're in business!" But Legg didn't care.It wasn't the diving career he wanted at all. Legge's drinking was getting worse.While out at sea, he unilaterally decided to survey a more challenging wreck that had always been his dream to explore.But exploring the wreck at a depth of 150 feet is clearly beyond the capabilities of the ship's customers.The charter customer was furious, "What the hell are you doing, Bill? We only want to find a 100-foot sunken ship, we can't go that deep." "You should really learn what real reduction is. Pressure dive," Legge snarled and rushed back to the wheelhouse.That's it, Legg only thinks of where he wants to go, he's not a taxi driver, he won't sell himself, and he'll never betray his diving spirit.But as the 1990s rolled around, Legg's drinking habits seriously degraded his diving skills.His body was weak, and his high shoulder blades, his yellow skin, and his thinning hair were all the result of his indulgence.He still swims beautifully, but experienced divers have noticed that his enthusiasm for the Dorian is starting to fade, and his expeditions are no longer often in places that others don't. "Ah, I'm recovering!" he said to a few close friends.Friends took him to mean "I'm ready to stop drinking". In 1990, Legg went to the "Dorian" for the last time to explore - if you don't fully mobilize all the functions of your body, you can't meet such a challenge. The best proof is the newly added "Dorian" of several corpses.Legg has fewer and fewer customers.Every day he would tell the few remaining customers that he would always do things the old way, the way diving had done in its heyday. Such was the state of Leger's life and business in the late summer of 1991.Due to the change of seasons, Brielle's business began to be deserted, and life in the small town gradually returned to a normal rhythm.Legg spent most of August cleaning the Explorer and planning for future livelihoods.As the sun went down, he walked around the pier, through the potholes and muddy parking lot, and into a bar that seemed God opened just for him. The "Harbour Bar" is open late every day.Jim Beam is readily available there.Legge felt parched again. I don't know when people started calling it the "Horror Bar", but everyone can tell you why.The bar is shrouded in cigarette smoke, even addicts will feel suffocated.The smell of the toilet poured into this small space like a grid unreservedly.Wherever you touch it, it's sticky.Drunk fisherman scrawled the names of women he liked on oily walls.Once, the bar owner wanted to wash off the accumulated smoke oil with water.But a group of people suddenly appeared, apparently at the instigation of others.They unscrewed the high-pressure water hose, which punched a hole in the bar's wall. There are not many customers in the "Horror Bar", but they are all regular patrons who live in the local area.Motorcyclists, fishermen, street thugs, ship mechanics, and deep-sea wreck divers are all regulars at the "Horror Bar".These men—no one dares to bring a lady to this kind of place—have no interest in pinball machines and pool games, and never mind the boss selling himself the leftover peanuts that other people eat.Guests drank beer from plastic cups before dropping cigarette butts into the cups to extinguish them.Fights are commonplace.But Legg was never kicked out of a bar.At one point, Briar had a rumor that Legg had been thrown out of a "horror bar" by a bartender for behaving obscenely.But no one believed this claim.Not because Legge was not believed to do anything nasty, but because in a place like this there was nothing surprising about anyone doing nasty things. That evening, Legg sat in the old place of the bar and ordered a Jin Bean.After finishing drinking, I ordered another glass.Half an hour later, a 38-year-old fishing boat owner in a dirty shirt sauntered into the bar to pay his fuel bill.Everyone knew him. His name was Skeeters.He has worked by the sea for many years, usually with his ship right next to the Explorer.His business was small—he took four or five fishermen out to sea at a time—but it was doing well.In the fishing charter business, a good business means two things: one, he knows which areas are rich in fish, and two, he knows how to keep a secret. Of course, being able to find fish is critical.If the fishing boat owner does not take the chartered fishermen to the sea where there are fish, then they will not easily disembark and go home.A fishing boat owner like Skeets has to sniff his nose, look at the sky, and say, "Gentlemen, I smell tuna today." Records take the fishermen to the fishing spots.Sometimes this location may be right on the shore, and sometimes it needs to be in a channel far from the coast.But there are usually shipwrecks around the waters they fish. For fishermen, shipwrecks are the guarantee of life.The vast amount of steel and wood buried human souls in the seabed has become fertile ground for the rapid growth of marine life.Shipwrecks are places where food chains quickly form.Tiny sea creatures that attach their bodies to solid objects attract predators.These carnivores, in turn, attract their superior carnivores.By analogy, a complete ecosystem will soon form around the wreck.Pelagic fish—such as tuna, cod, and pollock—cruising at the surface—are attracted and fattened.And fishing boat owners will often return with a full load and no worries about food and clothing. Secrecy is absolutely necessary.Every fishing boat owner has a notebook of known wrecks that they regularly fish around.But it's the secret wrecks that really matter, the ones that make successful fishing boat owners.Every fishing boat owner as successful as Skeets has accumulated over the course of his career a diary of the locations of several wrecks known only to him or a few others.These wrecks may have been discovered by chance through the bottom detector when he was out at sea; they may have been told to him by retired fishermen with whom he befriended;In any case, the more wrecks he knew, the more money he made; the more secret wrecks he knew, the more customers came to charter fishing boats. Fishing boat owners strictly guard the secret of fishing locations.They forbade customers from bringing their nautical equipment on board, or even into the wheelhouse, lest they snoop on anything pertaining to the fishing spot.If other ships happen to pass by while fishing, the fishing boat owner will quickly lift the anchor and sail away from the sea until the passing ships leave.If he is followed by a ship when he goes out to sea, he will weave on the surface of the sea and never fish until the following ship leaves.He must keep his mind sharp at all times, or his livelihood may be threatened.They still talk about the owner of the Corsair Fleet in Montauk to this day.At that time, this man took his two brothers to go fishing. After he fell asleep, the two brothers sneaked into the wheelhouse and secretly copied his book of numbers.A year later, the golden sea that once helped the fishing boat owner make a fortune has become a gathering place for many fishing boats. In recent years, Skeeters has been fishing a once-in-a-century spot.This place is 60 miles off the coast of Brielle.He found it by accident on a foggy day.He was fishing for tuna at the time.He lures tuna by hauling a nylon rope behind the boat, mimicking squid or other bait.Since the boat is always moving, he has to keep an eye out for other boats in the vicinity to avoid collisions.Due to the heavy fog at sea, he monitored through the ship's radar.Skeeters kept an eye on the radar.Soon he spotted another boat on the screen.But the green dot displayed on the screen of this ship never moves, which means that the ship is moored there.To Skeets, it meant only one thing—the radar detected a fishing boat fishing near a wreck. Skeets steered the boat back to port with difficulty and began tracking the fishing boat.Before the ship was spotted, Skeeters had the exact latitude and longitude numbers of its location.This is a fishing boat of a friend of his.His friend radioed Skeeters: "Skeeter, don't tell anyone about this location. Never tell anyone about it. This is an unusual location." A few days later, Skeets returned to the waters.This place is nothing short of fabulous - the fisherman just casts his hook and schools of fat tuna, bass and whiting are scrambling to get the bait.The most exciting thing is that only Skeets and his friends know about this place, which means that he can come fishing at any time without worrying that other fishing boat owners will deplete the fish. But whenever Skeets is here, weird things happen.Even as he enjoys the wreck's bounty, he can't help but wonder what the mysterious wreck on the ocean floor really is.It was big—he could tell from the thick green dots on the boat's bottom detector.It sank very deep—at least 190 feet or more.It's made of steel, and he's sure of that because sometimes pieces of rusty iron stick to his lines.Other than that, he knew nothing.He is very curious.Something here set off an impulse within him.He had lived at sea all his life, and he could feel what was important and what was not.For Skeets, he felt the place was very important. Year after year, whenever Leger saw Skeats parked in a parking lot, or cleaned a fishing boat, or paid a fuel bill, he would ask, "Well, Skeats, have you ever found a place where no divers have gone?" Shipwreck?" Year after year, Skeets gave the same answer: "Sorry, Bill, no." Today, Skeets looked at Legg and gave a different answer. "Billy, I fish this place all the time. Believe it or not, it's full of tuna, cod. Big fish everywhere." Legg glanced at him, holding up the bourbon, "So what?" "Bill, it's about 60 miles off the coast, at the depth you're interested in, maybe 200 feet deep. There's something down there, something big, and you should go see it. I think there's a real monster out there. Down there." Even after several glasses of Jim Beam, Legg could still tell which was idle boasting by the pier and which was sincere.He had always thought of Skeeters as an excellent fishing boat owner, a seaman who really knew the sea.He had no doubts about Skeeters' words.Of course, Legge couldn't and wouldn't ask Skeets to give him the numbers.Fishing boat owners have their own dignity and asking them for numbers is the worst violation of their profession. Skeets had a proposal. "Billy, I've been looking for an offshore wreck with black whales, and I know you've been diving there a lot. Give me the numbers for that place, and I'll give you the numbers for mine. But you've got to keep it a secret, Never tell anyone." Legge nodded. The two agreed to exchange each other's numbers on Legge's ship the next day.That night, the anticipation of this meeting kept Legg from sleeping at all.The next day, he arrived at the pier an hour early, pacing up and down the rotting planks.His body was throbbing constantly due to the inner impulse.The meeting wasn't just about the behemoth of the ocean floor, but the opportunity Legg had been waiting for. Skeeters finally arrived.Legg invited him to the wheelhouse of the Explorer.The small room they were in was hung with all sorts of nautical gear, a half bottle of Gim Bean, and a crumpled denim sleeping bag that Raig had used since childhood.They looked into each other's eyes. "Bill, I want to warn you," Skeets said, "this is a dangerous place. This part of the sea is very dangerous. This is an area of ​​low pressure, next to a fault, and there will be a strong current on the continental shelf. The ground is in motion." "Ha, don't worry, Skeeters." "I mean it, Bill, it's a dangerous place. You've got to get some of the best divers out there. You might feel like there's no wind and the sea is calm, but the boat will still drift, at least three knots. Drifting at speed. You know what that means, it means the current is rough and dangerous on the bottom of the ocean. And the boat is deep, I think at least 200 feet deep. I don't know anything about diving, but I think you'd better So your guys watch out." "Okay, Skeeters, I know, I know. Don't worry, let's swap numbers." Neither of them could find a clean piece of paper.Legge pulled two Terror Bar napkins from his pocket.He wrote his numbers to Skeets - a colony of black whales on the south coast where there is a cluster of rocks for easy fishing.Skeets then scribbled his numbers on a peanut oil smear Legg left behind.Fishing boat owners don't explore wrecks themselves.But Legg would tell Skeeters what he had found at the bottom of the sea.Legg was the only diver Skeets knew capable of diving to depths of 200 feet.And Legg seemed like a decent guy who wouldn't leak or sell the numbers to other fishing boat owners. Skeats passed the napkin over. "Keep it secret," he reminded Legge again, "for God's sake, be careful." Skeets left the wheelhouse, climbed down the steep white wooden ladder back to the dock, and boarded his fishing boat.After Skeeters left, Legge stood there for a moment, pen in one hand and the napkin clutched tightly in the other.He went to the Scary Bar, ordered a Gold Bean, and converted Skeeters' numbers into codes on another napkin.莱格在“探索者”号上放着一本数字书，但那些数字是众所周知的——如果想要的话就去偷吧，狗娘养的。他把重要的东西放在钱包里。你可以杀了莱格偷走他的钱包，但是没有代码，这些数字毫无意义，而莱格是死也不会把代码告诉别人的。他把这张新的餐巾纸叠起来放到钱包里，这样就安全了。之后，他给约翰。查特顿打了电话。 如果说莱格曾在什么人身上看到过自己的影子，那么这个人一定是约翰。查特顿。这是个高大英俊的40岁商业潜水员，操着一口浓重的长岛口音，这个时代最重要的沉船潜水他全都参与过。白天，查特顿在曼哈顿周围戴着铜制安全帽，拿着手电筒在水底从事建筑工作。周末，他就策划在东部海岸进行一些有创意的、大胆的沉船探险活动。当莱格看着查特顿的眼睛时，他仿佛看到当年自己身上的光辉在他眼中闪烁。 1987年他们在“探索者”号上相识。那天查特顿对要探险的地点没什么特别的兴趣。他参加潜水只是为了一睹莱格的风采，莱格一直是这行的一个神话。不久，有人租“探索者”号到“德克萨斯指挥塔”探险，查特顿随船前往。“德克萨斯指挥塔”是位于海岸线外60英里处的一个废旧的空军雷达站。在1961年的一次风暴中，指挥塔倒塌了，工作人员全部遇难。它的底部在200英尺的海底折成九十度，除了最熟练的潜水员外，任何人要潜到那里都有高度的危险性。但塔的顶部位于水下85英尺，对此行所有的潜水员来说都是一个安全、合适的深度。 参加此次潜水的一名潜水员非常自负。但由于他本身确实非常优秀，因此当他提出要潜到塔的底部去时，没有人感到有什么不妥。但很快沉船潜水最经典的故事再次上演。这个人执意想把一个铜窗打开，尽管他携带的氧气不足，但他仍然勉力而为，结果淹死在海底。在这个深度的海底，事故的发生往往快得让人猝不及防。 尸体留在了危险的海底，必须有人去把尸体打捞上来，这是莱格的工作。通常由他或他的一名助手潜到海里。但那天他们恰好刚刚潜完水，必须等到身体恢复后才能再次回到水里，而这个过程需要好几个小时。 查特顿主动请缨。但对海底不熟悉的潜水员很容易迷失方向，再也无法返回“探索者”号。考虑到这一点，莱格询问查特顿是否了解这一带受损的地形。“不是很了解，但我还是要去，”查特顿回答道。莱格被他的回答深深感动。 查特顿潜到“德克萨斯指挥塔”的底部后开始了他的搜索。很快他发现了尸体——“对一个死人来说，这样子算是好看的了，”查特顿暗想。他将尸体上的气瓶绑到一个两百磅的起重包上，然后给起重包充气，之后尸体开始向水面上升。为防万一，他用一卷绳索将尸体与沉船相连，这样如果有什么意外发生，还可以循着绳索找到尸体。 意外真的发生了。在上升过程中，迅速降低的水压使尸体身上的潜水服中的空气膨胀起来，上演了一出米其林轮胎娃娃的死亡版。尸体浮出水面后，一个大浪将起重包击毁，尸体又再次沉到了海底。这时夜幕已经开始降临，再潜入海底就太危险了。 查特顿提出第二天早晨再去寻找尸体。这使莱格对他更加另眼相看。当晚“探索者”号停在海上过夜。第二天，大家都用玉米片勉强充当了早餐。查特顿再次找到了尸体。这次，这个可怜的家伙可不怎么好看了。他的眼皮被鱼啃光，牙齿也龇了出来。看上去就像一个怪物。尸体浮起来后，莱格将他拖出水面。“干得漂亮，”他对查特顿说道，“你是个好潜水员。”自此之后，莱格和查特顿成为了好朋友。 不久以后，查特顿再次随“探索者”号出海。1987年，他第一次到“多利安”号去潜水。他在沉船的四周游弋，并没有采取进一步的行动。这个沉船实在太危险了，他发誓再不会到这里来探险。然而就是在这次潜水过程中，莱格在沉船上找到了一个两百磅重的木质告示牌，上面写着“保持推进器的清洁”。这是查特顿所见过的最漂亮的告示牌。他说：“比尔，能来到这里，我的潜水生涯已经到达了顶峰。有一次这样的经验就足够了。”然而，莱格清楚地知道查特顿不会就此罢休。 果然，查特顿对这艘沉船念念不忘。“多利安”号倾斜着的巨大身影引诱着查特顿去探寻这艘豪华沉船背后所掩藏的秘密。于是，他再一次来到了这里。他惊异于“多利安”号的宏伟，如果以每次潜水25分钟来计算，即使潜水十次也不可能将“多利安”号全部看遍。他还惊异于置身沉船之内的感觉，这个巨大宝库中所陈列的大量微小物品曾经对那些船上的乘客至关重要。很快，“多利安”号就占据了查特顿的全部生活。无论是在打扫树叶时，还是在观看足球比赛时，或是在商店买牛奶时，查特顿都在想每次在“多利安”号上的经历，直到有一天他在沉船上所有支离破碎的经历在他脑海中组成了一个完整的画面。“这就是我潜水的目的，”他对莱格说，“我希望中的潜水运动就是这样的。” 很快，查特顿就开始勘查“多利安”号上无人到过的地方，并在那里找到了有意义的物品，这些地方连莱格和他的同伴都未曾勘查过。查特顿仍然很欣赏莱格。他敬佩他对沉船的本能预感、对船只最辉煌时刻的构想、对甲板布置图和航行日志的认真研习、对当年沉船海员想法的解读，以及他策划潜水活动的能力，即使只知道很小一部分沉船的信息，他也能够将勘查整艘船的计划制定出来。更令他吃惊的是，无论从“多利安”号哪个角落里找出来的锈迹斑斑、毫不起眼的物品，莱格都可以在认真观察之后准确地判断出它们原来在船上所放置的位置。 查特顿和莱格的人生观是基本相同的。对他们来说，潜水就是探险，就是对未知世界的发掘。在查特顿和莱格的眼中，世界无比广大，很多人类不可能到达的地方有待他们去探索。你必须尝试着去探索。对他们来说，如果不去探索这些未知的地域，那么活着就没有什么意义了。 在得到了斯基茨的秘密之后，莱格叫来查特顿与他在“探索者”号的舵手室中会面。两人爬上楼梯走进舵手室，莱格把门锁上后向查特顿讲述了斯基茨的故事。那个地方的海底到底有什么东西？是一艘战舰或者战时的商船吗？几乎不可能——根据军方的记载两次世界大战期间那里都很少有军事行动。是“科瓦利斯号”吗，那艘好莱坞为拍摄1930年海难而沉入海底的道具船？可能性也很小：电影商们当时特地选择了一个普通海域来拍摄电影，而且斯基茨也知道那艘道具船沉没的具体地方。那么是地铁车厢吗？没什么可能——新泽西有意将地铁车厢沉入海底来促进海洋生物的生长，但沉没的地点都有准确的记载。 那么就可能是一些不带任何传奇色彩的船只了。那里可能只是一堆岩石，可能是一艘毫无价值的驳船，最有可能的是一艘淘汰的垃圾船。多年以前，市政府将废旧的纵帆船填满垃圾、砍断桅杆、随意沉没在海中。莱格和查特顿在潜水时遇到过很多这样的垃圾船。 但这仅仅只是可能，那里确实有一个庞然大物。 莱格提出了一个计划，他将和查特顿一起组织一次前往那里的勘查活动。每人发动六名顶级潜水员，他们都必须有能力在200英尺深的海下无人区存活下来，这将是一次艰难的旅程。在九月寒冷的海上，单程航行的时间就要六小时。每个潜水员要支付一百美元用于油料和各种开支，而且莱格和查特顿不会对此次行程做出任何许诺。曾有潜水包租船船长声称要将潜水员带至秘密的“处女地”进行勘查，但这通常都是骗局。当你潜到海底后发现只是毫无价值的渔船，上面可能还遗留着其他潜水员落下的撬棍。这时船长只会无辜地看着你说道：“哎呀，小伙子们，我可什么都不知道。”莱格和查特顿可不会这样。他们会将他们的想法据实相告：伙计们，我们可能什么也找不到，但我们必须去试试。 他们决定在1991年的劳动节启程。莱格和查特顿与他们认识的所有的优秀潜水员取得了联系。但几乎所有的人都拒绝了他们的邀请。甚至有几名他们认为会对神秘事物兴奋不已的潜水员也不打算参加。“我宁愿把钱花在可靠的地方，也不愿意相信天上会掉馅饼。”一个名叫布赖恩。斯凯利的潜水员对查特顿说：“伙计，你知道吗？我只恨自己生得太晚。所有那些真正了不起的沉船都已经被别人发现了。沉船探险的年代已经结束了。”这就是1991年的情景，人们需要的是得到许诺。但莱格和查特顿还在继续联系潜水员。 在与名单上所有的人都联系过后，他们终于勉强凑齐了12名潜水员。查特顿气愤地说：“难道就没人对新鲜事感兴趣了？比尔，这到底是他妈的怎么了？”莱格看着潜水员名单上的一个个红叉，低声说到：“约翰，这些人都没有沉船探险的精神。” 1991年9月2日午夜，在布里勒的居民都入睡后，莱格、查特顿和其他12名潜水员开始了此次探险旅程。他们在“探索者”号上装满了气瓶、面镜、调节器、潜水刀、手电，还有一包包其他各种用具。在到达斯基茨提供的地点之前他们要航行六个小时。有的人占了一个铺位蒙头大睡，其他人则围在桌边谈论彼此的生活，自嘲花钱去勘查一堆岩石的愚蠢行为。凌晨一点钟的时候，莱格对着名单检查了一遍船上的成员。“检查所有装置，”他招呼还醒着的人，然后走到楼上的舵手室中。查特顿发出信号，拔掉岸上的电源，开始使用船上的发电机。艇舱里的灯光开始闪烁，整个后甲板沐浴在石英灯明亮的白色灯光中。一名潜水员将电源线和供水器从码头上拔起，然后切断了连在岸上的电话线。莱格发动了船上的双柴油引擎，传出了一阵砰砰砰的声音。 查特顿将船驶入航道。他冲莱格喊道：“船头偏离航线！船尾不变……不变……好！”而后他将沉重的吊索拖上甲板。现在“探索者”号已经开始正常航行了。莱格检查了船上的无线电设备和探测器。几分钟后，“探索者”经过了海上的铁路吊桥，开始向大西洋挺进。这些人所追寻的很可能只是一艘垃圾船。沉船探险的时代也很可能已经一去不复返了。但随着布里勒码头渐渐从视线中消失，查特顿和莱格在地平线处看到了希望，在这一刻，他们感到世界是完美和公正的。